I noticed a sign next to the stairs when starting up that I assumed meant don't feed the monkeys.
I was about halfway up the stairs when I saw the first macaque monkey. It was a big male and I am a bit scared of these animals. I have had them try and steal food from me in the past and have heard stories of them stealing anything shiny, phones, cameras or keys.
I proceed up to the top of the main staircase and enjoyed the view. I also noticed a cactus that reminded me of the ones you see in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument but didn't see any monkeys at the base of any cactus when I was in Arizona.
This temple is still in the process of being built but I went up another internal staircase past some of the workers. I thought I was as high as I was going to go but the people working on the temple wanted me to go one level higher. I climbed the construction stairs that was more like a ladder to the base of the big Buddha.
The view of the country side was really nice but not such a great view of the Buddha.
All those steps and the afternoon heat made me a sweaty mess. One of workers insisted that I take a bottle of water. I am always surprised on how nice people can be.
I walked around the base of the Buddha a couple of times and decided it was time to go down. The workers had stopped for lunch and the monkeys had taken over the area around the ladder down. I nervously made my way to and down the ladder while keeping my eye on the pack leader. I was sure once I had both hands firmly grabbing the side of ladder the monkey would decide to eat my face. I can only assume this monkey had eaten an ugly old man before and found it not to his taste because there was no face eating today.
Below is a short video I did of this tenple.
No comments:
Post a Comment